And When the Earth Claims Your Limbs
by Chibi Taryn Demon
Summary: ...then shall you truly dance. A person could have many loves in their life; they only had one murderer. That connected them in a way more intimate than anything she could imagine. AU, Aeris x Zack, Aeris x Sephiroth. COMPLETE!
1. I: Intoxicated

A/N: This was written off of one of the first drafts of "Eyes of Clay," if you can believe it. I ended up liking some of the scenes so much I saved them and then developed this story around them. I think that these longer, AU oneshots are my favorite things to write (though I ended up dividing this one into parts, and it got rather weird and dreamy). Thanks for reading, and as always, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Nothing herein belongs to me. Final Fantasy VII is the property of Square-Enix, and the subheadings are bits and pieces taken remixed from the writings of one of my favorite poets, Kahlil Gibran. I recommend listening to "Let it Die" by the wonderful Feist while reading this; that's what I did while writing it.

* * *

**And When the Earth Claims Your Limbs**

**I. Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love / and read what the hand of Death has written on my forehead.  
**

"—and if you don't go with me, Aeris, the other guys will start up again, sayin' I made you up and I don't really have a girlfriend!" Zack finished, sitting down on the front pew decisively. Her pink-clad back, which was all he could see of her, didn't respond.

Zack groaned. He'd known it was a bad sign, when he first introduced the idea of their attending the annual ShinRa ball and she didn't look up, didn't hesitate for a moment in weeding and pruning her flowers. It meant that she had deduced what he wanted and dismissed it almost immediately. His heart plummeted. Why was she still not saying anything?

With utmost care, Aeris finished patting the soil around a sickly-looking daffodil, leaning down to whisper something into the dying petals. She still does that, Zack thought. She never told him what she said, but he knew it was in a foreign tongue, something heavy and ancient, like river water tumbling over rocks.

Her skirts rustled as she stood up and turned to face him, finally. Her expression was painstakingly neutral, though her emerald eyes shone as brightly as they always did, a shine less artificial and harsh than the mako in his. She was wearing her white and blue dress today, he noted absently. Though he personally thought she'd look great in pink, he liked this dress, especially the thin string that tied around her neck and that just barely managed to keep her top up…

His thought spiraled away into hormone-drenched depths. It took a sharp tug on one of his spiky forelocks to bring him back to reality.

"Zack." Aeris's voice, while still managing to sound perky, also sounded annoyed. She'd been trying to get his attention for a full minute now. "I said, how in the Planet could you even ask this of me? You know about the Turks. I haven't spent all these years running from them to hand myself over now!"

"But Aer, you've even got one of them on your side now!" Zack said. Aeris put her hands on her hips.

"I wouldn't exactly say that Tseng's on my side," she said. "If he had to choose—if Hojo was standing right behind him—he would take me in. I'm sure of it."

"It's a masquerade ball—they wouldn't recognize you. No one would!" was what he said. What he wanted to say was: _I love you I love you I want you to be with me always why can't you do this for me?_

"The Turks would. They've picked me out of crowds before." She quirked an eyebrow at him. Motes of sunlight streamed through the hole in the church, fell like fireflies into her hair. His expression must have dropped, because hers softened and she placed a warm hand to his face.

"I'm really sorry, Zack. I wish that I had a normal life and could do normal girlfriend stuff like this with you. But you can't ask me to go into ShinRa."

He captured her hand with his, and with a sigh, used his secret weapon. "The General will be there. It'll probably be the best opportunity you ever have to speak with him."

"A chance to talk with the General?" Aeris's voice hoarsened; her eyes misted over and grew distant. Unseen, Zack frowned.

Despite her continual protests to the contrary, she always acted a bit funny whenever he mentioned Sephiroth. Sometimes she would become animated, overeager, prodding him for more information about Sephiroth. Other times, she would spiral into a black pit of depression that he was helpless to stop. Aeris was never shy about showing her emotions, but this was just different. Odd.

Zack was convinced that, like so many other girls, she had developed a crush on the man. But whenever he mentioned it, she would just look at him sadly and say that he didn't understand, that it wasn't like that, and then she would press a kiss to the corner of his mouth like a child might do.

Zack wasn't normally a jealous guy—and he'd had more than his fair share of girlfriends, to be sure—but it was hard when your competition was ShinRa's rich, handsome, five-star general, the most sought-after bachelor on the Planet.

She gnawed on her lip, whispering, more to herself than to him, "It's just...it's such a risk to enter that place."

_One shot. _

_What will you do if you fail? _

_Would it be better to not even take the chance?_

"Can you tell me why it's 'such a risk' yet?" Zack asked. Aeris drew a pattern on the skin of his hand, gentle loops.

"You already know the important parts," she said. "ShinRa sees me as their property, and they want me back. It's probably better if you don't know anything else, Zack." _That way, if they ever do capture me again, you'll never know that I was something other than human. _

"Then can you at least tell me why you're so damn set on speaking to the General?" Aeris looked surprised at his tone, but he couldn't help it even as he felt his emotions swell with the rise and fall of his chest.

It was just...she was so secretive; her glowing green eyes could be as shuttered as an abandoned house when she willed them to be, and he wanted nothing more than to tear off the boards, fling open those drapes and let sunlight pour in. Zack felt chagrined, but swallowed and pressed forward, his concern and love fueling him.

"I mean, sure, every woman on the Planet wants to be picked as his wife, or even just his fling for a night, but you've never been like that. You say you just want to talk to him. Sephiroth is my friend, but Aeris, he is the coldest man I've ever met in my life. I don't think he's ever said more than ten words at a time to anyone other than me." He sighed, sounding tired. "I just think that if you are trying to get something meaningful out of him, or something, I don't know, life-affirming...you're going to be disappointed. I hate seeing you disappointed."

Aeris smiled carefully, eyes half-lidded. The urge to cry suddenly, urgently, pressed down on her breastbone. She inhaled.

For an irrational moment, she wanted to scream out, Zack, I want to convince him not to kill me! and collapse in his strong earthy embrace and leave salt trails on the dark blue of his uniform. She wanted to tell him everything: about her being a Cetra, and her fear that he would go on a mission one day and never come back, and the recurrent nightmares, about a silver-haired man with a thin sword and mad stare who, for some reason, killed her every night. But as always, the warm hum of the Planet's song and her own iron will reeled in the despair, packed it neatly into a box and stowed it deep, deep within her heart.

"Don't worry, Zack!" She said cheerfully. "I'm not that foolish, and you know I've got my hands full with you as it is. I'd just like to meet him is all, after hearing so much about him all the time on the news, introduce myself, that kind of thing." She paused. "I didn't mean to upset you..."

"It's okay, I didn't mean to snap either." His lavender eyes twinkled mischievously. "Buuuuuut you'll have to make it up to me somehow." _Back to his old self again. _

Aeris groaned in mock-exasperation, but quickly clambered onto the pew next to him. With a stray beam of sunlight illuminating them, they kissed. His mouth tasted like peaches and cream, and happiness. She hoped that he couldn't taste her own fear and uncertainty—he didn't need to worry about her more than he already did.

She pulled away from his lips a fraction of an inch, her eyes still closed, eyelashes casting deep shadows on her cheeks. "I'll go with you," she whispered.


	2. II: Bride of Death

**II. Look at the bride of Death standing like a column of light / Between my bed and the infinite;**

She dreamed. Like she had dreamed every night for the past three months.

This time she was standing in an expansive green field, the grass swishing about her knees. The sky stretched out in all directions, endless; huge puffy white clouds like castles towered over her. The golden ponds nearby rippled with koi, reflecting the sky. Somewhere wonderfully close, a heavy-jawed, black-lipped jungle cat was dozing in the sun; there were birds singing. Butterflies of all colors floated on the breeze.

Aeris spun in a circle, feeling the light warm her skin, and knew she should be happy. A butterfly landed in her cupped palms, blue wings opening and closing hypnotically. She smiled at its touch, but still—something was amiss. A presence behind the clouds, a threat implicit in the way the grass swayed and whispered...Hours flew by, marked only by the passage of clouds across the sky.

A cold wind from the north.

The butterflies around her suddenly grew frantic in their flight. The one in her palms froze, then dissipated into iridescent blue dust that sifted through her fingers. More dust rained down on her, and she looked up to see all of the other butterflies dying in bursts of powder. Scales of shiny green, yellow and red fringed her hair, her eyelashes.

She tried to speak, but her throat stuck. It felt as if her tongue was ripped out.

Silence swept over the fields like sheeting rain. The sky was still that pure, robin's egg blue, but it looked like the color was draining away; the clouds writhed and became mist. The comforting presence of the jungle cat vanished, violently. A series of images flashed, superimposed, over her vision, _roots veining stone feathers falling aflame flesh becoming grass._

Aeris clutched at her throat with one hand and fell to her knees. Shivers ran down her body as she stared upwards, past the dying butterflies, towards the pale sky. The upside-down image of Midgar appeared there suddenly, mako-green and black looming over her, as the grass around her burst into flame.

Awareness flooded her. _This is my dream_, she thought, _I'm dreaming. And so I die._ She stared up at Midgar, lost, remnants of butterfly wings gleaming all over her body. She waited with baited breath, chest heaving, yet unable to move her gaze from the hazy upside-down city.

Like the kiss of a dead lover, the cold mouth of steel pressed against her back, slowly, slowly, easing first through skin, then red muscle, then bone.

Midgar turned red; the grass turned red. Flames leapt higher, but she couldn't feel them.

In agonizing pain, she watched as long silver hair draped into her line of vision. A deep voice full of malice whispered to her in the old tongue, "And so you die as you lived…on your knees."  
Gasping for air, Aeris sat bolt upright in bed. Her hair clung to her sweaty forehead and fell about her shoulders in disarray. She stared at the blank wall of her room, heedless of the tears dripping down her cheeks.

_Those dreams…they start differently, but they always end the same way._


	3. III: The Mirror

**III. You are eternity and you are the mirror.  
**

In one of the many high-end fashion shops that crowded the top of the Plate, a slum girl stared at herself in the floor-length mirror. She felt as out of place as a weed in a rose patch. She at least wished that she hadn't worn her heavy, worn gardening boots up here.

Aeris tugged nervously on the bodice of her dress. "Are you sure this looks okay, Zack?" She did a small turn, craning her head to see the dress dip in the back. The dress was a dark forest green, satin, with a plunging sweetheart neckline and two thin straps that crisscrossed in the back; it clung to her tightly on top, but flared out at the waist and ended at her knees in soft waves. The whole thing was trimmed in expensive Corel gold thread. This, she concluded, was a far cry from any of the dresses she owned.

"Aeris, you look amazing," Zack said. "You would make a paper bag look amazing." Aeris turned and frowned at him.

"What?! So this looks like a paper bag on me?" She sniffed. He held up his hands nervously.

"No! Nonono! I meant that you're gorgeous, you've got curves to spare and—" He backpedaled. "It looks like a 1,750 gil dress, just like it should!"

Aeris giggled, her frown melting away. "Zack, I was only teasing. It's just..." She looked back at her reflection. She still saw just a flower girl from the slums. "This dress is so expensive, and it's not me. You know?"

"Hmmm..." Zack tapped his chin. "It does seem like it's missing something." He stretched and went over to stand behind her. With a flourish, he drew something out of his pocket and clasped it around her neck.

"Oh!" Aeris breathed. "It's lovely." Dangling down from a thin, chain-link gold necklace was a small, stylized heart pendant. She caught Zack's eyes in the mirror, gracing him with a big, genuine smile.

"Zack, you shouldn't have."

"But aren't you glad I did?"

Aeris laughed, a bright, bell-like sound that had been absent as of late. "Yes, I am. Thank you!" The locket gleamed like a star beneath the artificial lights.

"And you know, it goes so well with that dress, you may as well get that, too," Zack said. Her eyes widened.

"B-but it's so expensive!" She blurted out. The attendant looked at her, then looked away.

Aeris lowered her voice. "Zack, don't waste your pay on something like this…" The SOLDIER reached over and ruffled her hair playfully.

"Then what should I waste it on, hmm? My parents are taken care of and there isn't anything in particular I need this month, so…" He waved over the attendant. "Ring this up, please!"

"Zack!" Aeris stomped her foot. "I won't let you!" She stuck her tongue out at him while trying to smooth down her hair.

"You look cute when you're angry, you know that?" He touched her face, smiling lightly.

"Zack…" She melted a bit under the warm gaze of his lavender eyes. Errant thoughts sprang up in her head, how many people would attend the wedding ceremony, what their children would look like. Just as quickly she dashed them, remembering the dreams.

She looked up at her boyfriend a bit mournfully, wondering if it wouldn't be more merciful to end things with him now and march off to her strange death alone.

_I can't; I'm selfish in this one way, Planet, haven't I earned it?_

As it often did in the face of her pain, the Planet remained silent. Aeris looked at Zack and tried to burn into her mind the way he was at this exact moment, gaze warm and violet, hair falling carelessly into his eyes, genuine smile gracing his lips.

_I'll carry your memory with me always. _

Aeris cleared her throat and busied herself by digging through one of the pockets on her thin jacket, lying crumpled on the floor.

She straightened, hands behind her back. "Well, because I had a feeling you were going to do something like this…I got you something too."

Zack pretended to swoon. "Oh, my stars and garters!"

She stuck her tongue out at him playfully. "Don't make a scene, Fair! It's only a little thing, anyway."

Into his hand dropped a little charm on a red string, the type that people often tied around the antenna of their PHS. He dangled it closer. It was a photo of him and Aeris making silly faces—one out of a series that they'd taken in a five-gil photobooth in Sector 6—sandwiched into a bit of heart-shaped plastic. On the other side, instead of just allowing the photo's blank back to show, she'd put in a few dried flower petals, white and yellow. It was thoughtful, cute, and very, very Aeris.

"Only a little thing? It's great," he grinned, making a big show of attaching it to his PHS then and there. "Better than anything else you could have gotten me."

Zack kissed her forehead tenderly, then wrapped her into a hug. She returned it, her heart light. A sudden movement in the dressmaker's window drew her eyes. Looking over his shoulder at her own reflection, Aeris watched mutely as two wings formed from her back, then caught fire and dissolved to ash, knowing that she was the only one seeing such things.

_Now even when I'm awake, I'm dreaming. Am I fated to move between worlds until I don't know what's real anymore?_

She closed her eyes and tried hard to let Zack's embrace overpower the memory of a blade against her back, the earthy scent of him banish the acrid smell of burning grass and feathers. The material of her dress grew cold.


	4. IV: Part of Joy, Part of Sorrow

**VI. I am the lover's gift; I am the wedding wreath; I am the memory of a moment of happiness; I am the last gift of the living to the dead; I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow—**

Aeris took a draught of cool air and steeled herself, staring up, up, up at the Shinra Tower, curving and disappearing into the night. Steam hissed and rose in thick clouds. Beneath the building's sickly green lights, her dress shimmered like a dying star.

She licked her lips and pressed a little closer to Zack's arm. Most of her life had been spent trying to avoid this place and the vultures that inhabited it, and now here she was, getting ready to go inside. What was she thinking? Dreams had spurred her here, on a fool's errand, trying to prevent her possible murder by a man she'd likely never meet.

Her heart fluttered in her chest and she turned to Zack, ready to panic. The distant pulses of pain the Planet released, so close to this parasitic building, weren't helping either. She couldn't do this, she couldn't, she couldn't—

Zack, exuding warmth and his usual brand of kinetic joy, touched her cheek, breaking through her increasingly-frantic thoughts.

"Almost forgot," he smiled, placing a mask on her face—white, smooth, blank—and tying the golden silk ribbon behind her head. It matched his perfectly; it narrowed over the delicate slope of her nose, widened at her eyes and left her cheekbones to wing upwards in a few stylized curlicues. Instantly she felt more confident, fear melting away into the wind.

"Are you ready?" He asked, looping her arm through his, watching her expectantly.

_Breathe._ With a sigh she tossed her head, feeling her long curls snap like a mane, the Planet soothing her with an invisible hand.

"Yes," she said, and though her voice was a little more wavery than she would have liked, she meant it.

They moved inside, Zack flashing his SOLDIER insignia when asked to show identification.

Shinra had been transformed, from what she remembered at least; inside, all was gold and glitz in place of corporate sterility and bare efficiency. The walls had been papered with gilded gold and draped in matching gauze, the floor laid—for this night only, what an incredible waste!—with a veneer of white marble. A huge chandelier hung from the ceiling, positively dripping with crystals. Tables and chairs of dark wood and red velvet dotted the second floor, each piece most likely costing more than what she made in a year. The Planet was achingly silent, drowned out beneath the bright swirl of the lights and blare of the string and brass band.

Aeris's breath was taken away by the sheer opulence of it all, so different as to be almost alien. Her face burned behind her mask, as she imagined the eyes of everyone in the room falling accusingly upon her; but no one even noticed one girl in a pretty green dress. She pressed closer to Zack, trying to regain her bearings, feeling hot and disoriented.

Zack guided her gently through the throngs of SOLDIERs and their wives, senior officials, Shinra bureaucrats. He grabbed a cup from the long banquet table and filled it with punch before giving it to Aeris. She accepted it gratefully.

"Are you okay?" He asked seriously, hand lingering on her elbow. Worry tinged his violet-gray eyes. Aeris smiled up at him.

"Yes—I've just never been in such a fancy room before, with so many people," she said, feeling silly for overreacting. She didn't want Zack to be concerned about her on a night that was supposed to be fun. And she could, she realized, have fun; confronting her lynx-eyed killer could wait. Behind them, the band struck up a quick, lively tune.

Aeris finished her punch and extended her hand to him, grinning. "May I have this dance?"

Relieved, Zack swung her into his arms and they joined the other couples on the dance floor. Aeris matched her steps to Zack's, even as his got faster and more complex, and even as whatever was in that punch got to her head. She felt the hand on her shoulder blade slide to the small of her back, safely within the circle of his arms, as they whirled around. The room blurred past in flashes of color as they matched the fast beat of the music, Aeris getting just as caught up in it as Zack. She laughed breathlessly, and he grinned widely, glad to see her enjoying herself.

Aeris chanced a look down at her feet, almost expecting to see her ankles sprouting wings. Her gold high heels flashed and dipped in time to the punchy drumbeat. She looked back up just as Zack took them spinning past the table of honor, which seated people who she only knew through the photos on television and newspaper pages: President Shinra, Vice President Shinra, Head of Public Safety Maintenance Heidegger.

And _him_.

Her heart leapt into her throat as her eyes froze on him, even as Zack continued to move her away. A person seemingly bled of all color, washed in shades of black and silver, save eyes that burned jade. Sephiroth. He sat impassive as a statue, thin mouth held neutrally, as unruffled as though he sat in the room alone. One hand idly tipped his wineglass back and forth. His gaze roved the room slowly, without seeing.

The band finished with a brassy flourish. The couples, many looking happily worn out, applauded as the musicians bowed before beginning the next song, something slow and graceful. Zack, not noticing her sudden burst of fear, guided her into the steps. Aeris finally tore her gaze away from Sephiroth and rested her head against Zack's shoulder, drawing strength from his embrace.

Zack nudged her. "Look over there," he whispered. She peeked to the side as he instructed, needing a distraction.

"That's Scarlet Jones," he said, indicating a curvy, scantily-dressed woman dancing with a stocky, grey-haired man. She wore a blood-red mask with jagged ends that brought flames to mind, and it perfectly matched her skintight red and gold dress.

"She's Head of Weapons Development, and one smart lady, but as bonkers as they come."

"How can you tell that's her?" asked Aeris softly. A glass-shattering laugh pierced through even the music, and she jumped. Zack rubbed his ears.

"That's how." His voice was low, his chin down as he gestured imperceptibly at a group of three men beside the table of honor. "And I _know _you know them."

"Not by choice," she frowned, following his lead. The Turks hadn't bothered with masks and costumes; they looked out of place yet almost faded into the background in their iconic blue suits. Tseng, impeccable as always, was casting his eyes about the crowd. She knew if he was close enough to get a good look, he'd recognize her immediately, and be furious with her. His fate had tied itself to hers the first time, in a moment of weakness or regret or guilt, he let her get away, and by putting herself in danger she was putting his life on the line as well.

To be honest, she wasn't sure why, even now, he continued protecting her…though she had an idea. A certain light came into Tseng's eyes sometimes when he sat on a pew in the old church and watched her tend the flowers. The tension in his shoulders eased, and his smile slipped towards genuine. Aeris, never at a loss for words, couldn't put voice to what she felt emanating from him during those quiet moments, and he never pressed. Their relationship was too convoluted already, perhaps.

She saw his black eyes flick over her, and she pressed her face to Zack's neck. He chuckled a little, and sifted her hair through his fingers.

"And you must've seen _him_ by now," he said.

"Yes."

"What did you think?" His voice was quiet, but not accusatory. She considered her words carefully.

"He looked…distant. Detached, from everything and everyone."

"That's him, all right."

Her nerves tingled, hyper-aware, and she suddenly felt a heavy cold gaze on the back of her neck. In sharp defiance warmth bloomed in the pit of her stomach and spread like wildfire. She knew. _It's him, it's him, it's him_.

Did he dream of killing her, as she dreamt of being killed by him? Did she send echoes of memories rippling across his consciousness? Her murderer was special, she knew that; how could he _not_ recognize her, even if they had never met in the waking world? A whole host of charged words and images could fill the space between them.

She brushed her hand over her neck as though flicking away his gaze. That wellspring of courage and stubbornness that allowed her to survive for so long was taking over and she could faintly feel the Planet's murmur lending her strength. The room fairly pulsed with foreign energy—she could almost make out the lay lines of Lifestream that shifted, trapped, between the walls. Something slow and warm was invading her veins now, languorous: the feeling of a mission about to be realized.

The slow song faded to nothing, and again the dancers applauded, Zack included. He noticed the change in Aeris's eyes, how they darkened and seemed to shine with an inner light much older than she. Her trance face, he'd called it teasingly, before he knew that it meant she was thinking of Sephiroth.

"Thanks for the dances, Aeris," he said, then tugged her towards the table of honor. "Now come on. I'll introduce you."

She let herself be led by the hand, and cleared her mind of all doubt, all negativity and all thought. Her fingers lightly touched the heart pendant Zack had given her, then dropped to her side.


	5. V: Yield

**V. And when his wings enfold you yield to him / Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you— **

Sephiroth's bored eyes had easily picked out his second-in-command, Fair, even wearing a ridiculous mask; his hair, his general posture and his body language gave him away. The woman he was with he assumed to be Fair's girlfriend, the female he had chattered ceaselessly about until around three months ago, when his sappy monologues tapered off. Sephiroth had filed that away silently, assuming that the two had gone their separate ways, but this must be her: her hair and eyes were exactly as Zack had said, he could see that even from his distance. Though really, none of this mattered. As long as Fair continued to report for duty on time, he could care less about what he did during his free hours. He was a damn good SOLDIER and to lose him to something as silly and inconsequential as love would be a shame.

His mouth quirked as the line of the girl's back straightened and her shoulders tensed, as though she felt his eyes on her. He tended to have that affect on people, being told more than once as a child to keep his "snake eyes" from "glaring." They had had no idea of how intimidating he'd truly become.

Sephiroth took a sip of his wine and considered leaving for the hundredth time. He didn't know how much of the noise, the lights and the sleazy Shinra execs he could stand. But the President had ordered his attendance, and besides, Hojo was not here—a definite plus.

"General?"

Sephiroth snapped back to attention. Zack and his girl stood before his place at the table.

"Fair," he nodded.

"This is my girlfriend," Zack said, presenting the girl on his arm. For her part, she looked oddly serene, unlike many of the SOLDIERs' wives he was forced to meet. They usually went all fluttery and flirtatious, or silent and completely intimidated. Not her. She looked up at him, and smiled, a quiet and secretive gesture, her motions slow.

Aeris felt as though she were moving underwater.

_Face-to-face with my future murderer_, she thought, inner fire blazing as she felt his cold gaze run over her again, like a physical touch. _He looks just like he does in my dreams, up close. Handsome, cold, with something dirty lurking inside…something sickly…_Staring into those eyes, she could almost feel herself fading.

Not for the first time, she was grateful for the white mask she wore that covered her face from mid-cheek to forehead, hiding what she knew to be the deathly paleness of her skin. The crisp blankness of the mask made her eyes exceptionally vibrant, a deep and dark green many shades lighter than his own.

"Call me Lily," she said, offering one delicate, white-gloved hand to his. The lie, unexpected, nonetheless rolled off her tongue easily.

Sephiroth detested any form of contact other than a handshake, but in the merest consideration of Zack's feelings—and the fact that he was bored, and tired, and that she was pretty enough—he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it briefly. The smile stayed on Aeris's face, but she felt the coldness of his mouth right through the satin glove.

Her eyes locked with his, in a staring contest that wasn't entirely friendly, or challenging. Hers were deep, quiet forest pools that brimmed with life; his, the ice-glazed ponds of the north. With a start, he saw the reflections of strange things in her eyes—the spiraling arms of galaxies, blades of grass—and wondered if she saw the same in his. Then, wondered if perhaps he'd had too much wine.

Zack had let go of her arm and vanished into the crowd, like she'd asked him to. She hoped that he trusted her enough to know that she had no romantic designs on the General, although she knew she had been so vague about her goals she wouldn't blame him if he did think that.

"Would you care to dance, General?" Aeris's voice so soft and smooth through exquisite control. Her heart pounded restlessly, but her hands were steady.

He had denied every other tentative offer so far this night, but something was radiating from her, a light so bright it nearly hurt to look at her—and yet, he was sensing from her some shadowed worry, the same subtle expectation that SOLDIERs sent to the frontlines had. He could practically smell her fear, yet her movements, her facial expressions were completely serene.

He found himself irrationally irritated by her, yet still wanting to be close to her. In a room full of insincere Shinra flunkies and their vapid, shallow women, she seemed positively alien. That strangeness was alluring.

Though she had lied to him. Her name wasn't Lily.

Wordlessly, he took her hand and they moved towards the floor.


	6. VI: Withering Heart

**VI. Weave from the harp and lute a veil around my withering heart. **

Very, very carefully, Sephiroth placed his hand on her waist and his other against her palm. They both stood straight-backed, arms at perfect angles. Aeris had to raise her chin slightly to look into his eyes, and combined with her stance it gave her a defiant air. She lightly followed Sephiroth's clipped, precise steps as the band took up a slow waltz. Their legs moved in smooth conjunction

As they danced, he murmured to her, "What is your real name?"

She drew back a fraction of an inch, but didn't stop smiling. The warmth in her veins wouldn't let her. "What makes you think Lily isn't my real name?" Her voice remained pleasant and low.

"When you introduced yourself before, your eyes looked upwards and towards the left," he said, smiling back tightly, almost threateningly. If she wasn't so weak, if her hand in his didn't feel like the down and hollow bones of a sparrow, he would have thought she was an assassin. "Zack also seemed uneasy and stared right at you as you said it."

"Well." she said; that was it. Well. They danced in silence for a minute as she thought. She didn't know what had possessed her to give a fake name; all she recalled was that the image of white lilies, just like the kind she grew in the church, and their heavy, dizzying scent, overcame her when she opened her mouth.

"You're right. That's not my name," she said.

_Planet, Mother, anyone—give me the strength to do this!_

Then she leaned up as far as she could, her lips warm against his ear, and whispered, "Do you promise not to tell?"

He didn't agree, but didn't disagree either. His expression changed to one that was slightly startled, slightly repulsed—was she another crazed fan with fantasies he would never fulfill? She hadn't seemed it, thus far—and his silver brows knit together, and as if they were one being they stopped dancing, surrounded on all sides by whirling couples, flashes of color like butterflies in a strong wind. Music filled the silence between them, swelled around them like crashing waves, ensconced them like a shattered tower.

Seconds stretched out to eternity. Aeris watched as the images from her dreams superimposed themselves over her reality, Midgar upside down, butterfly scales and grass in flames. Her own voice, doubled over with the neutral voice of the Planet, spoke.

_Are you sure you want to start this? _

_I have to. I won't let things end...without even beginning. I have to try._

_Even if it damns both of you?_

_Yes. _

In a low murmur, like an unfurling ribbon of velvet tickling his ear, the girl said, "Specimen AN-002AG. Look me up."

"What are you talking about?" He hissed, emotions spiraling towards anger. His fingers tightened against her back. She knew what to do, though she didn't know what he would see; the Planet murmured that it was for him, and him alone. So she just smiled that unexplainable smile at him again and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips—serving as a conduit between Sephiroth and the Planet. A surge of the Planet's knowledge and power blasted through her, setting every nerve ending on fire as she channeled it all to Sephiroth.

To him: Her kiss was perfectly nice, soft and warm, with a taste like almonds and the lingering alcoholic sweetness of the punch. But it felt like something exploded in his head; images flashed through his mind too quickly to make out anything but impressions. Distantly he heard her voice, impossibly quiet, say, "You'll find me when you need more answers…" and then he lost his vision and was plunged into memories, or the future.

_a purple-skinned woman in a tank_

_ a black ball of fire scorching the sky_

_ roots veining stone_

_ dusty books in the darkness mountains_

_agony rising from a city of glass and white trees_

_laughter and flames, his laughter_

_ death on the snow fields_

It was over in a split second, but to Sephiroth it felt like an eternity. One hand to his aching temples, Sephiroth glared down at the girl, ready to demand an explanation. She was gone.

She had flowed away from his arms like smoke. It wasn't that he loosened his grip, it was that at one moment she was there, and the next she was not. He whirled around, searching for her or for Zack, but they had vanished.

He stood like a statue, feeling his heart pound in a mixture of anger and irrational…fear? No. Consternation. What that girl had done to him was something far worse than anything an assassin could try—some kind of mental technique. He had heard the Wutain tales, of course, of fey creatures who took the forms of humans on moonless nights, to bewitch and beguile. But for what purpose?

The band cut off suddenly, and the dancing couples around him slowed and began to clap.

With his face a mask of anger and without a word to anyone, General Sephiroth left the ballroom.


	7. VII: Beloved

A/N: Only about five chapters left after this. Hope you like it! I've enjoyed experimenting with it, especially the format. After this story is finished, expect another chapter of Reflect the Sky. ;)

* * *

**  
VII. Kiss me, my beloved, for Winter has stolen / All but our moving lips—**

Above the Plate, the night was cold and crisp, and stars grinned from a distance like old friends. They fled the Shinra Building as though they were teenagers hiding from their parents, Aeris laughing excitedly as she dragged him along behind her.

"Did you say what you wanted to say?" Zack asked, concern marring his handsome features even as he trotted to keep up.

"Yes," said Aeris. She watched the cloud of her breath rise and dissipate in long streams.

She hadn't planned on telling Sephiroth her specimen number; it had come to her suddenly, almost as though it were no thought of her own. It was the first time she'd ever spoken that series of letters and numbers aloud, and she thanked the Planet that Hojo had never tattooed it on her wrist like he had her mother's. She needed no more reminders of her difference.

"And did he respond how you hoped?"

She closed her eyes, still smiling, and prayed that the brief, shattered images she had shared with him had done their job. From what she'd glimpsed of him, before fear had bade her take flight, he'd seem shocked, and angry. She wondered again what the Planet had shown him, and why it refused to show her. She'd already seen herself die in a multitude of ways…

"I think so." She said resolutely.

Zack didn't need to know how shaken she was, nor how her kiss had sent a fiery desire coursing through her blood.

_Don't be absurd, Aeris! _She scolded herself. It was an adrenaline rush like people who cheated death got, pure and simple. It had to be; she would not entertain any other option.

Nonetheless, she felt invigorated. For the first time, she'd been able to actually do something, to take a step in possibly preventing her death at the hands of that man. Her brush with him ignited within her an even deeper appreciation of the delicate gift she held right now: life.

"Aeris—" Zack still sounded worried. Spinning around him playfully, she caught him with a passionate kiss. Startled at first, he eventually leaned back into her.

"What's gotten into you tonight?" He murmured, clearly overwhelmed by her rapid changes in emotion. It took a lot to confuse Zack, and Aeris privately thought he looked adorable when he cocked his head to the side like a puppy.

So Aeris giggled, winking at him. "Nothing! That was just so much fun! Let's not let the night end, Zack! To the church!"

The return of her cheerful good mood finally swept Zack up in its momentum. He lifted her up easily, hands behind the back of her knees to put her on him, piggyback. She shrieked in laughter and ruffled his hair.

"Zack! Put me down! Zack!"

When that didn't work, she took to running her hands down the back of his neck, his shoulders, kissing his ear and cheek, all movements designed to drive him insane.

They unsteadily made their way back to her church, Zack tugging off her dress before they'd even made it through the door. She never saw what they did there as sacrilegious, a fact that Zack loved to tease her about, though he didn't complain.

They would wake the next morning with their clothes for blankets and her lilies as pillows, leaving thin white petals and the scent of a graveyard lost in their hair for the rest of the day.


	8. VIII: Deaf and Blind

A/N: Thanks to all of my reviewers, but especially to Ardwynna and winternightBliSs! Enjoy (despite the fact that I couldn't get the formatting right for this chapter...sigh).

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**VIII. I heard all that can be heard. Yet, my heart is deaf and blind.**

Shinra Science Department File Archive

enter password

initiate password override sequence GNLSEPH0536682

password override DENIED

enter password

initiate password override sequence TRKTSEN0887578

password override ACCEPTED

overriding…

access granted

search term(s), date, keywords

search term AN-002AG

searching…searching…

5 RESULTS

result 1

**ID: Specimen AN-002AG**

Name: Aeris Gast

Sex: Female

Age: At time of capture, 20 days; at time of escape, 7 years; specimen is now 18.

Eye color: Green

Height: At time of escape, 3 feet 4 inches; now estimated at 5 feet, 2 inches

Weight: At time of escape, 48 lbs; now estimated at 115 lbs

Species: Half-Cetra, half-human

Injection series: Mako D04, to mako D01; the injections eventually had to be halted to gain the cooperation of the specimen's mother.

Description: AN-002AG was a specimen from her infancy to the age of 7. She was kept with her mother until weaned, and at that point she was removed and put in an adjoining cell. As a child, her mood was incessantly cheerful, though she did cry out for her mother on a daily basis. Otherwise AN-002AG was well-mannered and well-adjusted. The subject was often observed playing quietly with provided objects. The subject was also observed talking while no one was visibly in the room, presumably to the Planet, or to the voices of her ancestors; she denied these allegations. AN-002AG refused to respond to her specimen number despite no or limited contact with those who used her birth name. She responded poorly to preliminary mako treatments, as well as strength training, and other tests that Specimen JN-000S was able to complete at her age. While physically weak, her spirit energy appears limitless, much like that of AN-001IG. Questions about the Promised Land seemed to confuse her; further questioning caused her to withdraw physically and mentally. The specimen escaped along with Specimen AN-001IG during a freak power outage. The body of AN-001IG was later recovered and AN-002AG was presumed dead, until intelligence of a talented, though untrained, Materia user living beneath the Plate was gathered. Eyewitness reports confirmed that Specimen AN-002AG was indeed alive.

Note: AN-002AG is being monitored by the Turks, who will attempt to return her to Shinra ownership. The specimen should now be old enough 1) to be sexually-mature and 2) to have synthesized information about the Promised Land. Should she not reveal the secrets of the Promised Land, she will be used in a suitable cross-species breeding program and a gene-splicing program.

Photo #1: A close-up of the little girl, morose, in standard-issue gray scrubs, hair up in two pigtails, eyes startling green as she stares straight at the camera.

Photo #2: The little girl, unconscious and naked and stretched out on an operating table next to a woman with the same cinnamon-gold hair.

Photo #3: Taken from a distance, through a crowd. The specimen is laughing, leaning over to hand a flower to someone, dressed in white and pink, pale-skinned, features elfin and eyes still that green.


	9. IX: Sweet

**IX.** **It is the scent of burnt flesh, sweet and bountiful. I would breathe it—**

Bathed in the sickly green glow of the computer screen, Sephiroth read each precious little bit of information with undeniable hunger. Here, at last, was someone like him, tortured in the chambers deep inside the Shinra building, torn into pieces for being something _special_. And she had succeeded where he had failed: she escaped. The girl that had bewitched him was no Wutain spy. She was not—like he, he suspected, had suspected for a long time—even human. She was Cetra, Ancient, the last of a dead, alien breed. A race of beautiful, otherwordly beings who maintained a special connection to the Planet, and wielded magical powers that others could only dream about, and returned to the Lifestream not to be reborn but to ascend to a Promised Land only for them.

Sephiroth's mind raced, outpacing his normal cynicism and common sense. Could it be only chance, the sameness of their eyes? Perhaps they were the same, the Adam and Eve of a race mercilessly exterminated by brutish humans. That distant echo, that scratching at his mind sometimes late at night could be the Planet; his occasional nightmares visions sent from long-dead ancestors. He had never cared for companionship much, but with another of his kind by his side, things would be different. She already knew the torture of life in the laboratories; that alone made her more similar to him than most people.

_It may be too good to be true_, he reminded himself, though his mind was already awash in possibilities. _Who knows what Hojo creates here? _

AN-002AG—no, Aeris, that was her name, he would never use specimen names, having had one himself—would have answers, answers to questions he'd never even thought to ask. She had said she would, with a soft hopeful voice and eyes that couldn't be hidden even with a mask.

The reasons behind her strange behavior now were clear, as were the strange images she had shared with him. She recognized him, just as he recognized her. She wanted him to find these files, read about her and the horrors she had suffered here. She wanted him to find _her_. But for what purpose? Would sheer loneliness send her straight into the lion's den that Shinra assuredly was for her?

Perhaps she wanted to twist him to suit some hidden purpose. His lip curled. He didn't like being used, part of his dissatisfaction with Shinra of late stemming from that very feeling. He wanted to doubt that a Cetra, a higher being, would be capable of the human trait of manipulation.

Sephiroth ran his eyes over the photos again, stared with interest at the final photo of the girl selling flowers. Flowers in Midgar—only a Cetra would be able to charm plants out of that polluted ground. He printed the photo, ostensibly to use when he descended into the slums to search for her but truly because it was a piece of her, a little shred of her soul captured on glossy paper and it made him feel good to have it in his hand.

He logged off the computer and made his way out of the labs, suppressing a shudder as he passed the empty glass specimen cages. He was silent for the entire elevator ride up to his room, careful to keep the photo hidden in his pocket. The Cetra's face was in his mind now, and even as some of his thoughts laid out his search plan for the next day, others simply thought about her.

The crux of it all: he couldn't explain the push and pull he felt when thinking about her. One part, hungry, was attracted to her and the knowledge she surely possessed with an almost violent intensity; the other, repulsed by her, her abundance of emotion, her human stain. Sick. With an undercurrent of…concern? If she had the power to force visions into his mind from mere skin contact, then yes, she was a source of concern as well. Physically she would be no threat to him, but as the report said, her spiritual energy at least rivaled his.

Nonetheless, she had answers. And he, Sephiroth, would get them. What happened afterwards would be up to the both of them.


	10. X: Thrice Empty

A/N: The words from Aeris's dream are from "Sand and Foam," a Kahlil Gibran collection of words and wisdom. The end's in sight…

* * *

**X. Vain is the waking and empty is the sleep / And thrice empty and vain is the dream.**

She awoke early the next morning with black feathers in her hair and words dying on her lips.

Aeris tried to grasp the vanishing threads of her dream, but they slipped through her fingers, into the darkness of her unconscious. Odd—she hadn't been able to forget the past months' dreams even when she tried; they sprang up to haunt her in every shadow and shudder. This felt different, important somehow, not threatening but…advisory. A message from the Planet or her ancestors, perhaps. Was her mission not yet complete? The thought sent paroxysms of worry running through her.

The dreams of her death had become less frequent after her interaction with Sephiroth at the Shinra Building. They appeared occasionally, as did the visions; the feathers in her hair vanished when she reached up to touch them. But they were nowhere near as vivid as they once were, and this gave her hope that she had done it: she'd changed whatever future existed there for her and Sephiroth, one where he wasn't a murderer and she wasn't a victim. Her deviation from the path they'd been on had been successful; by now he must have found the files Shinra kept on her, realized that he wasn't alone in the world, that he could seek her out and she could try to…what? She could heal him. Or so she'd thought, before this dream had startled her.

Next to her, Zack yawned and stretched, breaking her thoughts. While she was tucked snugly under the covers, he had slept above them, just in case Elmyra became suspicious. She rested her head in the crook of her neck and shoulder and inhaled his warm, earthy scent, trying to stabilize herself. She counted out her breaths, feeling her pulse slow and her heart steady.

"You were talking in your sleep last night," Zack murmured, eyes still closed. Aeris's rigidity returned in full force. "Must have been a nightmare."

"What did I say?"

Zack rubbed her shoulder lightly, feeling the knot of tension there. "Somethin' really weird, about a house, a road, past and future...I couldn't make it all out. You sounded…sad."

It was as if a bell sounded in her head. Words tumbled into her consciousness in a mad rush, begging to be heard, to influence, to help. For what she didn't know.

_My house says to me, "Do not leave me, for here dwells your past." And the road says to me, "Come and follow me, for I am your future." And I say to both my house and the road, "I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going…_

_And…what? What next? Stay or go?_

Try as she might, Aeris could not remember the last line. The Planet was garbled; it couldn't help her here, try though it might.

A despair unlike any other, seemingly born from the depths of her heart, rose to choke her. She _was_ failing him. And through that, she was letting herself die. Her step off their preordained path hadn't been enough, it seemed. Was she needed to die so badly that it would be her fate regardless of what she knew, or what she changed? Tears gathered in her eyes, spirit dropping.

Defeatism was becoming easier and easier to accept, like the way your nose became accustomed to a harsh scent after a few minutes. Death came to everyone. Did it matter who administered the blow? The shedding of her mortal coil would herald her ascendance to the Promised Land, where she would never have to suffer. Perhaps in the future she was facing, Sephiroth would be doing her a favor by killing her.

The Planet, disturbed by her black thoughts, keened wordlessly in her ears.

Aeris burrowed closer to Zack, thankful that he'd drifted back to sleep and so didn't have to see her cry.

* * *

In his luxury apartment atop the Plate, deep within the Shinra Building, Sephiroth jolted awake where he had been dozing at his desk, the photo of Aeris trapped beneath his cheek. He blinked and looked down at it, her smiling visage somewhat of a comfort to him despite what he'd just seen.

He never dreamt, and yet tonight, the oddest images filtered through his mind: a house, a road, the intertwined threads of past and future…and him, killing the Cetra time and time again in a million different ways. Euphoria and hopelessness warred within him as he recalled the scenes—the blood arcing from her in graceful sprays, his hands bruising the white column of her throat, her eyes dimming like stars going out.

Sephiroth shuddered. On the one hand, he recoiled from ever hurting someone potentially _like him_, and on the other he recognized that if anyone were ever to take her life, it _would_ have to be him. His hand was the only one worthy to spill a drop of her blood. A human killing her would be…a waste, a tragedy.

Concerned at his own thoughts, Sephiroth forcibly blanked his mind. He did file away the strange words impressed on him in the dream, spoken in a huge and distant voice…another question among many for the Cetra.

He remembered how she had shown him images once before, those disjointed fragments of varying clarity. Perhaps again she was trying to tell him something without speaking. What she had to gain from showing him images of her death by his hands, he couldn't say.

Something cold and unsettling percolated up from his stomach, and Sephiroth stayed awake to watch the sun rise, though it roused nothing in him. He would find her today.


	11. XI: Tomorrow

A/N: My favorite chapter, though I split the ending into the next chapter as it was getting kind of lengthy. Enjoy.

* * *

**XI. Wait until Tomorrow / Comes, for tomorrow is free to / Do with me as he wishes.**

She felt it when he finally appeared. The Planet hushed immediately, her ancestors' voices going oddly silent. Aeris remained where she was, kneeing amongst her white lilies, gently patting down the soil around them.

He stood without speaking, seemingly content just to watch her garden. Conscious of his eyes on her, she nonetheless tried not to tense up and instead hummed a little bit. It was a song the Planet often liked to sing, for no reason at all that she could discern. It reminded Sephiroth of birdsong and he found he didn't mind it.

But he had to speak. There were things he needed to know that no one else alive could tell him.

"You are an Ancient, then?" He asked, words like stones.

She'd never admitted it to anyone, save Elmyra. Telling Sephiroth, a stranger—and a lethal one at that—something she'd never even told Zack made her feel distinctly odd.

But no, he wasn't just any stranger on the street, he could one day be her killer and that connected them in a way more intimate than anything she could imagine. A person could have many loves in their life; they only had one murderer.

"Yes," she said, finally wiping her hands and turning to look at him. He stood just inside the doorway, arms crossed, and she felt the absurd need to giggle. Against the soft pastels of all the church's colors, he could not have looked more out of place.

"Well, I'm half," she amended with a cough.

"And are there others like you?" His voice sounded so heart-shatteringly quiet, so unlike his normal authoritative, cold tones, that she suddenly realized what he thought, just as surely as she knew the truth would shatter that hope.

Her sadness or resignation must have shown on her face; something shuttered down behind his eyes when he asked, "Then I am not…like you?"

The Planet murmured something incomprehensible. She wanted to tell him they were the same, but she couldn't—she couldn't lie to him if she didn't know for sure.

"I don't know. I don't know the extent of Hojo's experiments. All I know is that there's something else inside you," Aeris said, "something not _right_. It's down in your core and one day it's going to take you over."

Her words, blunt though they had been, seemed too sharp now in the silence. She swallowed as she felt him withdrawing from her, his cool anger building in the space between them and control spiraling away from her. He was hurt.

"Then you know nothing," he snapped. This was not how he had seen things progressing. If he wasn't a Cetra, like she, what in the devil's name _was_ he? A monster? A puppet controlled by some sinister force inside him? Rage rose, and was reined in tightly. The girl watched him carefully, sensing the roiling emotions beneath his blank façade; to her credit she didn't seem afraid.

"Perhaps," she agreed slowly. "But I know for a fact that you will be faced with a choice, and _that_ is what will determine what you are."

"I could _choose_ to kill you where you stand," he said as easily as asking for the time. As soon as the words were out he wished them back, the images of his dream flashing before him vividly. The thought of hurting her made him skittish, itchy, like his skin was pulled too tight.

But she didn't know that. A despairing chuckle welled up in her throat, and Aeris turned bleak eyes to him as she began to contemplate the true depths of the damage done to him. Her efforts to change the future now seemed as pointless as building walls of sand to keep out the rising tide.

Her shoulders dropped slightly, and he read a million things in that one gesture.

"You could. And I think one day you might." She stood up, bathed in the sunlight pouring in through the hole in the church's roof, and her gaze wasn't challenging now.

"But it's okay—everything will end up the way it should, even if I made a little detour. I'm starting to see. I know that I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going."

The words—the words from his dream—tumbled from her lips.

"So you did send me that dream." The girl blinked; she gave him a questioning look.

"Those words," he explained. "I've heard them too."

Aeris didn't bother to correct him. Maybe she did share the dream with him, maybe it was the Planet; for all she knew, it could have been the parasite within him.

"Do you know how it ends?" She asked. "That stanza…"

His expression tightened. "Answer my question first. Did you send me those images?"

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Her eyes finally drifted away from his to watch the streaming sunlight fade.

"A shared dream." Her voice a whisper now. "Maybe it was me. I don't know what I've done anymore. Who's to say what ripples our actions cause?"

He remained silent; she could get no read on his emotions, as though he were a blank slate. It was disconcerting, but she had him here now and wouldn't be silent, when the next time they met she would be silenced for all time.

"I've had so many dreams, I can hardly remember them all," she continued. "You kill me in each one, you know."

"I know these dreams," he said finally. "They plague me. Who are you that my subconscious wants you dead?"

She met his gaze again. "Not your subconscious. The thing inside you. The Planet fears it." _I fear it_.

So that was it—he was a monster. Not human, not Cetra. He was an abnormality, an outcast, the result of some genetic mutation or an experiment gone wrong. Like Hojo, she saw him for what he was—something less than human. _Or_, he thought suddenly, _something more_.

Who made it so that the Cetra were superior to all? Perhaps there came something before even them, an ascendant being that they, like the humans after them, feared so much that they felt it had to be destroyed.

Yes, yes, that's it, crooned the deep angry thing, and he turned to leave with its hisses spurring him on when—

He froze. Aeris's hand seared his, burning like a suture, silencing all other thought. She didn't seem aware of his disinclination to be touched. He felt her heat right through his leather glove.

"Please—I have to know. If you do nothing else for me, do this: how does it end? I can't remember."

Seeing she had his attention, she prompted: "And if I go, there is a staying in my going—"

"Only love and death will change all things." Sephiroth said.

A strange sense of relief flooded her, like a rush of cold water. "Yes," Aeris whispered, her mouth heavy and curled with satisfaction. The Planet thrummed lowly in her mind, a single plucked string. "That's right. Sides to the same coin, answers to the same question. It makes sense."

_I didn't give enough_, she thought with wonder. _How foolish I was, to think that Cetra heritage and scientific reports could divert time's flow_. _How does one combat pain, sadness, death? With memories and trust and love_.

She turned to him suddenly, eyes alight. "Which do you choose?"

"Which do I choose?" This girl confused him to no end. First she seemed eager, then resigned, and now…she nearly pulsed with energy.

"Which have you chosen?"

They stared at each other as though from across a great chasm. She was as incomprehensible to him as the sunrise. He didn't understand entirely what she meant but he knew what his answer was and would always be.

"Death," Sephiroth said simply, unapologetically. _It's all I have. It has never betrayed me. Death is something I understand, as It understands me._

"And here I choose love," she quirked an odd smile. "So we're at an impasse. What happens now?"

"This isn't the right time," he said immediately, remembering that split-second snatch of an image she'd given him, a city of glass, water, pain. "For death," he clarified. _Your death_.

"Death never has to come," she said softly.

He looked at her as if she was a fool. "Death comes to all. It is not always something to be lamented," he said, not sure why he was saying it. He'd killed before and he'd kill again and he never tried to explain himself to a victim—and that was the sense he was getting from her, combined with those dreams. She was, or would be, someone he would see again.

"Then I'll have to do better even better than matching death with simply love, hm? I'll gift you with life," Aeris said. She was challenging him now (her cheeks flushed with vitality and her eyes shining and her lips already parted) and he let her.

Among her funereal white lilies they came together.

She kissed his cold mouth, his cold cheeks, his cold eyelids; she tasted the ridge of his shoulder blades and the old scars that had never faded. With fingertips warm and reverent she touched every inch of his skin, tracing long scrolls of Cetran poetry there in great looping whorls, and her lips followed. She poured her love of life into every movement, every little sound, giving him as much of herself as she possibly could without crumbling into dust.

Like an observer outside of his own body, he watched the long brown fall of her hair tumble into his, a clashing of gold and silver in the dirt. He watched his fingers, paler by a shade than her own skin, trail over her bird's collarbone, roughly dig into her breasts, and he watched her face take on the exquisite pain that was pleasure.

Her light, too pure, threatened to burn him away.

Between the heat of her body and the warmth of the soil beneath them he felt hot, too hot. He wanted to shrink away from the trust she put in him; even when one large hand clamped around her throat she knew that they were not in the house of death, and even his warped love was a love and so she would cherish it.

They both kept their eyes open, the entire time. Every moment of pleasure was another faint little death, each gasp and moan another breath neither would ever take again.

_Now I understand_.


	12. XII: Carry Your Cross

**XII. Only great sorrow or great joy can reveal your truth. If you would be revealed you must either dance naked in the sun, or carry your cross.**

They sat side by side in the flowers, bare backs to the door. She didn't feel empty like she thought she might; instead she felt full, full to the brim with understanding and deep-seated warmth. The Planet's influence, perhaps, or the simple magic of human contact. She didn't look at him, or touch him, but nonetheless could feel his presence solidly there. What he was thinking, she could not guess, but she wanted him to know…

"It's not the ending that hurts," Aeris said. Her quiet voice echoed in the stillness of the church. "That, I've always expected. Beginning this...trying to change things...maybe that's what damned me. If you didn't know me, didn't know what I was…"

He didn't want to tell her that being born was what damned her, just as it had damned him. One last small kindness for the flower girl, the best he could do. A familiar numbness was settling into his bones; the emotions she had aroused in him—affection, confusion, acceptance, fear—were dulling in response to the fact that nothing had really changed.

_I finally thought that I was in control now, _he thought. _A General for Shinra, stronger than any that have come before me. I should be untouchable. What strange force compels that she die and that I need be the one to kill her?_

The questions he had had for her melted away in the face of her attempt and failure to move him; the details of his background, and hers, were unimportant. Like every other creature on the Planet, she simply wanted to survive. Like every predator, he wanted to kill, to crush, to consume. _But each a monster, in our own way_. That, he understood.

Sephiroth looked at her, disheveled, lips and pale skin bruised. She was staring at the crushed flowers, petals and leaves scattered about like their clothing, with a pleasingly blank look on her face. Tendrils of her hair snaked over her shoulders and down the valley between her breasts. Objectively judged, she was lovely. If even her love, given freely, was unable to have him choose a different life—to acknowledge that that choice was even possible—then he couldn't deviate from whatever shadowed path lay before him. He could feel its call.

So he left. Forever after the heavy scent of lilies brought Sephiroth back to this day—he razed an entire field of them just to forget her and instead carried the scent in his hair for weeks afterward. She had marked him more than she knew. But her turn to be marked by him would come in time.

Aeris watched him exit the church and slid a hand over her heart, pounding away. Love couldn't sway death, just as death could never erase the memory of love. She knew that, and hoped he knew that as well. _If he questioned our fate, for even one moment, then perhaps this detour was still meaningful_. _I can move to the next life knowing that we were united once, and that he experienced love, even if he couldn't understand it._ It was small consolation to a scared little girl, and she watered the flowers with her tears.

She'd done everything she could. She knew, just as well as he did, that it hadn't been enough, though she'd carry the memory of her gift to him for as long as she lived, until the day when he would repay her, in his way, the way he had chosen. And she'd accept his gift with all of the poise and strength she could muster and await his arrival in the Lifestream, so he could see once and for all that love was just as eternal as death was.


	13. XIII: Silence

**XIII. And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence-  
**

She in the blooming of the lilies, he in their return to earth, they say with voices carried on the wind; only love and death will change all things. In a place where they are freed of the chains of fate, they can finally understand one another.


End file.
